I originally put this in GD

[moniss]

but niyad asked me to be sure to put this here. I saw so much of this through my many years and whenever I hear or see something about people wanting to take us back to those times I know I must speak out about what I know. I will always speak out about how it was and how women were trapped.


" About the GQP wanting to end no-fault divorce I would use every cuss word I could for them because of where they want to go back to.
They want to take us back to a time where wives were being physically abused, leaving the house with the kids and "going back to mother" which was usually followed by the cops and maybe even the parents telling the woman she was "being too emotional", "over-reacting", "being a bad wife", "shouldn't upset your husband", "shouldn't be mouthy" etc.

Many people today don't realize what it was like back then. Little in the way of social services available to help a woman care for children, parents taking the side of the abusive husband, cops and courts pooh-poohing the bruises and broken bones etc. Where was a woman supposed to go? What was she supposed to do? If she left the children with the husband in order to save herself as a human being then she was torn apart by society for being a "bad mother" and if she took the kids with her then she was torn apart as "deserting her husband", "stealing the children" etc.

If you did manage to get a divorce then you were looked at by society as a "wanton woman" who was going to be "needing it bad" and so all of the bullshit sexual harassment/groping and advances would pile in. Nobody was going to step in to stop it because you were "one of those" women and were "probably asking for it".

Marriage became a prison for far too many women before no-fault. For far too many the home was also a torture chamber. I worked in a grocery store while in school in my small town and I saw some of those women. Coming into the store to shop when it was late and just before closing so there would be as few people to see them. See them in the dark of night wearing sunglasses to hide the black eyes, a scarf on their head to hide a missing chunk of hair and long sleeves to hide the bruised arms. But you knew they were there because you could see the bandage under the scarf and the bruises and scrapes on the hands. The hands that trembled and shook as they quickly picked a few things and left. You would see them sometimes with their husbands during the day in the store after the bruises healed during one of the times the husband is "being nicer". The hands still shaking, voice very meek and a very noticeable flinch if he made a sudden gesture in her direction or raised his voice slightly while saying "no" about something she wanted to buy.

Yes I've seen it too many times. We all know what "it" is. Grandmothers, Aunts, Mothers, Daughters and Sisters trapped in that prison and trying to endure the torture chamber and stay alive. That prison closed down when no-fault passed and it must never be allowed to open again. "

[brush]

1. Whoa. So profound. Thanks for revealing what abuse wives went through.

[SARose]

2. You made your bed...

How many times did Mothers tell their daughters that in the 50’s? A lot more often than most young women today understand. My Dad never abused my Mother but I knew of women who were threatened with or experienced “home training.”

How about the fact that women did not have money in their own name? My Mother did not have a credit card in her own name until the 1980’s. My first two cars were in my Dad’s name because I could not have credit in my own name.

I lived at home for 3 years saving for a small condo. Got all the way to closing when the Title Company asked my Dad to sign for the loan. Wuht? Needless to say I stood up and we left.

Let’s talk about when my Mother married my Dad. She had to have written permission from my Dad to be fitted with a diaphragm.

Women in my generation fought long and hard for no fault divorce, the ability to own property in our own names, to have a checking or savings account in our own names, access to birth control, and on and on.

Young women, heed our warnings. A small, vocal, portion of American men want to take us all backwards. Don’t let that happen. Vote, vote, vote.

[moniss]

11. Yes and

that financial restriction on women played a major role in making the decision to "try to stick it out" with the abusive marriage because how would you get a car for example? I can remember that if a woman wanted to rent an apartment the first thing they would ask is "Where is your husband?" or "You'll have to have your father sign the lease."

[no_hypocrisy]

3. The other side of no-fault divorce is

it allows for a less traumatic uncoupling. For example, as a wife, maybe you could make a cogent case for adultery, but you opt for NF, just in order to get out of the marriage as quickly and safely as possible. You aren't locked into a bad marriage where your children suffer with you. When I was growing up, some classmates were whispered about as having come from a "broken home". Divorce is a rough ride unless you and your partner agree on just about everything and you can even avoid attorneys with divorce mediation, but that is far and few.

The potential harm to families and to society with the removal of no fault divorce is harrowing.

The legislation is wholly about control of women. Men are relatively more enlightened than their fathers and grandfathers, but that soon could change.

[CTyankee]

4. Your post and this thread just reminded me of my first marriage and the trauma I suffered.

Mine was not physical, thank god! But it was constant emotional pain: his non-support and frequent adultery finally drove me to ask friends at work if they knew of any divorce lawyers who could help me (I had no money, everything I earned had to be used for supporting our household and 3 kids). I told him I was seeking a divorce and he immediately moved in with his girlfriend at the time and her brother was a lawyer who helped him.

Fortunately, I had a carpool buddy who recommended I join a group called Parents without Partners. At one of their social events I met my now husband, who was separated from his wife. Eventually, we got married. That was in 1991! Life is SO much better.

You'll like this: when I started writing about art I privately published a book of essays I had written. My ex had the NERVE to try to take credit for it. He said he was the one who helped me "find my voice." You can imagine my outrage! But my new daughter in law, a rabbi, just quietly said "Perhaps he can write his own book and use his own voice."

[no_hypocrisy]

5. I wish you didn't have endure such pain.

Unfortunately, a lot of us are forced to evolve through such awakenings.

My mother married in 1951 and "woke up" years later to find she was coupled to a malignant narcissist. She wanted to divorce and escape, but she didn't trust the courts. (This was the late 60s.) This is where her marriage led: her husband/my father unethically intervened with her primary physician and told her not to tell my mother that she was dying of cancer. Of course, Mom figured it out, tragically in the last days of her life. And then my father unilaterally had morphine added to her IV and that's how she died. I don't know if Mom had previously discussed her end of life, but she certainly didn't get to decide. I know because we had intense discussions during her last hours.

BTW, I'm an attorney. One of my first legal actions was providing a free divorce for a woman who was physically, mentally, and emotionally abused. She had a four year old child. We were lucky that her husband had his next wife lined up and we cruised through the court with NF divorce (before the prospective fiancée discovered his true nature.)

[CTyankee]

7. You are doing such good work on behalf of viciously abused women! Thank you! I loved hearing your story.

I also got a NF divorce. My lawyer wanted to really go after my then husband. I thought that for my 3 kids, who were young kids at the time, that no fault was the way to go. Now, my son is a dad too and he and his wife had IVF and have a happy and healthy son. My son is a busy prosecutor in Brooklyn but also involved in righting the wrongs of the judicial system and works hard on exoneration of unjustly incarcerated men. He's a great guy.

[no_hypocrisy]

8. Tell your son about The Fortune Society for paroled inmates making a new start.

https://fortunesociety.org/

Our vision is to foster a world where those who are incarcerated or formerly incarcerated will thrive as positive, contributing members of society.

[CTyankee]

9. I will. Today is his birthday and I'm calling him later tis a.m. to wish him happy birthday!

[moniss]

12. Some of the things I hear

from the conversations of younger men today about women, marriage and children gives me great concern about how receptive so many of them would be to accepting what the "control" freaks want.

[2naSalit]

6. Reminds me of...

The violence we, in my immediate family, endured all through my childhood.

I taught me to watch my back and not to believe people. I married once, that lasted 2 years, I left for my own safety. I have been a solitary being for 99% of the rest of my adult life, and probably better off for it.

[SARose]

10. Thank you

Moniss, thank you for this post. These stories are powerful and need to be told and retold.

Who else has a story?

[GiqueCee]

13. I know I'm preaching to the choir...

Last edited Sat Mar 30, 2024, 12:22 PM - Edit history (1)

... but these men are just flat out evil. They are beyond redemption. They are Jim Joneses on steroids. And there is a proportional inversion between their sanctimonious religiosity and the malice inherent in their actions. They are the furthest thing from "Christian" it is possible to be without growing horns and a tail. And they are consumed by a blood-thirsty craving for dominion over the lives of others, but their shorthand for it is "POWER".
But this vicious, hateful shit is just the tip of a truly monstrous iceberg. There are a multitude of factions all exerting pressure from all sides at once. Republican politicians are, of course at the forefront, but they are in league with malevolent evangelicals, the secretive Opus Dei, anti-abortion activists that even want to ban contraceptives, corporatists that want to create a new feudalism, and you can bet Putin's got his blood-soaked fingers in this somewhere. He's dead set on destroying America by any and every means at his disposal, and that's a LOT of means.
And then there are the women that, against all logic and reason, still support these psychopaths who are hell-bent on enslaving first those women themselves, because they're an easy target that pleases the woman haters, and then the rest of us.
So here's my question: As an elderly, thrice-divorced (First two were pre-no-fault. I had to confess to beating my wife in Catholic-achusetts. That never happened) white male, is there a resistance organization to which I can contribute to help fight these vile monsters?
I ain't rich by any stretch of the imagination, but I will do what I can. They have to be beaten into a puddle of blood and bone. Figuratively speaking, of course.

End of rant.