S. O. S: Significant Other Support. Relationships after separation

2009-01-27T12:55:00.001-05:00

Surviving in a new relationship with middle aged divorced or separated persons.

How the court system fails in resolving adversarial divorce issues in a timely manner.

S. O. S.
Members: 1
Registrar: Myself

Dating in middle age (45-60 years old) for men and women is the topic of this writing. I am writing from a mid 50 year old woman’s perspective and am involved with an equal rights court reform group for recently divorcing people to ensure that the future of children and their parents can be as wholesome and cooperative as possible. Dating and forming new relationships in the middle age group often means dating and forming new unions with a divorcee. To be a new “significant other” to an individual in any stage of divorce, in this current age, is a challenge one has to consider carefully. It is important to weigh and measure all factors involved.

Men, women or children, do not always benefit from a ‘till death do us part” marriage, in fact, remaining in a union which love and common respect for one another is lost is to teach and condition the children in this kind of loveless marriage that this kind of conduct is the norm. Children growing up watching dysfunction and discord will allow it in their own adult lives because this is the environment in which they were brought up in. I am not an advocate of teaching generational dysfunction and in this writing I will be attempting to convey my life experiences and observations in order to, possibly, benefit anyone who may be in a controversial lifestyle and is struggling with the assorted issues of this predicament.

The average divorce, with often expected adversarial contested complications, is usually a 1 ½ to 2 year ordeal. The more money involved (marital assets) the longer and more complicated the divorce will become. In EXTREME adversarial divorces, often most marital assets will be consumed in attorney fees and unnecessary waste, with no regard for future needs of the family members. Often thriving businesses will come close to failing or collapsing due to the hard heartedness and narcissistic extremes of adversarial divorcing parents. In these extreme cases, children of the marriage become tools of destruction or can be lost in the scuffle. New relationships each divorcing parent is engaged in will be clouded and shadowed by the adversarial malingering of the Family Court Systems which prevents expedient closure of a dysfunctional life style.

There is a 50% divorce rate in the USA. Divorcing couples have often gone through years of controversy, living a life style of stress or strife. Many people in bad marriages do not just jump up and run to a lawyers office upon the first sign of malfunction. There may be many difficult years of living in discord and disharmony before a decision is reached that it is better, in the long run, to end a loveless, uncooperative union for the sake of the whole. Often, at least one of the partners will attempt to bring in outside intervention to try and resolve marital strife. Such attempts can include: seeking intervention or advice from well respected family relatives or friends, bringing the issues of discord to the attention of religious leaders of their faith, hiring psychologists or C.S.W.’s in addressing the tensions and hostilities between the adults and how it effects the children, bringing the children to counselors who can help them cope with feuding parents, etc., etc.. These endeavors are the most intelligent ones to pursue when there are internal adult conflicts.

Unfortunately, outside intervention to prevent the collapse of a marital union does not always work, or one of the two parties wishes to not pursue this avenue. It is very difficult to save a troubled marriage when one of the members of this union refuses to address the problems! This kind of refusal to address internal personal problems can go on for years. In this case an estrangement between the couple commences, they may be still “appearing” to live together to outside observers and may even attend group events, for the “sake of the children”.

One of the partners may malinger in a bad union in order to remain close to the children and be fearful of loosing a connection to the children with the event of a physical separation. This is often the case with men who fear the Family or Matrimonial Court divorce systems will unnaturally estrange them from their children. (Current court systems are not yet fully evolved into being fair and just advocates of equal parenting rights for both sexes). Another reason for not abandoning an unsound union would be an apprehension of loosing financial support a divorce would certainly affect, reluctances to end a loveless marriage on this ground is also a primary reason for remaining.

This scenario is common and can go on for years. When intimacy and love is lost (the “magic”) in a marriage and when only base functionality exists, usually the couples are living a somewhat separate life style. This they may frequently try to hide from the children and from other family members. Despite attempts at camouflaging a life style that is not even one of neutral roommate coexistence, as hostility and resentment is just below the surface, the reality stands the family is living a life of lies. Physical or extreme verbal abuse generally accompanies this life of lies.

People who marry in the first place are ones who have wished for intimacy and family in their lives. These people have chosen a path of community and shared partnership. Understandably then, when a marriage goes so sour that it is physically damaging an individual or morally derailing them, expectedly and eventually this individual will remove themselves from this kind of union and expectedly seek out companionship of a higher caliber. In other words, a divorcing person will move on in their life and begin new relationships with the opposite sex. Here is where controversy comes into play! At what point in time is it proper to move on and at what point in time is it acceptable for an individual to begin a new life?

In the Divorce Courts the commencement of divorce proceedings, serving of a divorce summons to a spouse, to the end , a judge granting and signing a legal title of divorce, can be 1 ½ - 2 years. Remember there were generally “several years” of marital strife and estrangement leading to this commencement. Then there is the usual one year recovery time of acceptance after the divorce is legally filed before a person is out of the woods with tangled involvements of a former spouse. This is a very long time frame for an individual, who chose a life of community and family, to be entirely devoid of love, appreciation, acceptance and intimate human contact!

Married people are not ones who chose to live as a Monk, Martyr or Saint! What they wished for was all American, Norman Rockwell, romantic Cleopatra and Mark Antony or maybe even be to as divine, dramatic and enduring as Mr. and Mrs. Martin Luther King Jr.! Divorcing couple are no longer engaged in loving or normal interaction with one another. Certainly if one of the two, or both, has formed friendships with people outside of the marriage; ones of platonic rapport, are attending social engagements as an individual and not inclusive of a couple, have separate friendships apart from the marital home, vacationing alone, indulge hobbies not inclusive of an estranged spouse and even (gasp) have intimacy with a more suitable companion the question is; At what point does society see this as a natural progression? At what point in time does the Scarlett Letter no longer be sewn onto a significant other’s lapel? At what point in time does the world, at large, understand it was the marital union which failed the individuals, it was the couples own inability to function well in a loving partnership and it was not the outside world, or influences of it, which brought most divorces about?

These usual and standard time frames do not encompass or include “exceptional” cases. Exceptional cases are ones where there is no recovery or acceptance for one of the spouses. The children or relatives of this begrudging spouse will often fall into psychological dysfunction due to constant exposure to fictional tales or out right demonstrations of endless hate. Here, in these very extreme cases, one would have to wonder if the motive for marriage in the first place was one other than of love. These exceptional cases profoundly effect life after divorce encounters. Next generation families do not have the benefit of exiled relatives, who still love them, in their lives. New significant others do not have the opportunity to experience and become part of their partner’s children or relatives lives. One profound real life encounter of sadness and loss, which demonstrates this extreme, is that of a boy who was made estranged to his father through this kind of fictional hate mongering by a 2nd wife his father was divorcing. The tale ends tragically when this young man is killed in a freak car accident and did not have the time to come to amends with his father over differences created by extreme, unjust prejudice.

The other side of the coin is this too; very simply, and with out intent or malice, one of the divorcing partners will simply out grow the other, they are no longer in love. This individual does not usually wish to divorce his/her children from this union, they only wish for freedom from a lack luster, abusive or limiting relationship and to go on in life and find experiences which better suit them. They wish for companions which compliment their life’s work and dreams and they often wish for their children to become part of their lives, regardless of where they maybe. I have lived my own life this way, if some one does not love me, then they do not. It is my obligation to go forward and find a life that is fulfilling, contributing and satisfying as I have never wished to remain in a state of resentment or regret for that which could never work, for what ever the reasons were.

In my generation (1970’s – 1980’s), people in their 20’s and 30’s were well on their way into new lives or relationships once proclamations of irreconcilable differences were made. Men and women would begin new ventures, or try to. New job prospects, retraining, new romantic encounters, new friends were all part of the separation process and life style pending the finial paper work of a divorce decree. Nobody wasted time waiting for finial paper work, we were younger, one door closed and another one was open for us to walk through and moved forward. A new significant other of a divorcing spouse was to be expected, people moved on. The child of a failed marriage expected his/her parents to move into new relationships, society, in general then, was more accepting of this progression.

In the 2009 generation, USA, there seems to be harder speculation as to whether it is proper and correct for divorcing spouses to move on until one year after a divorce is completed. This contemporary view point would expect all divorcing spouses to remain in a state of isolation from normal adult interactions for possibly 4-7 years. The sole focus of a divorcing spouse is expected to be only on the discord in pre-separation, then the enduring 1 ½ - 2 year court ordeal, and then finally a full year of adjustment post divorce an individual is expected to remain stoic and alone during this lengthy time frame.

If they do not remain alone and stoic then any new person in their life is cast as the interloper, the cause, the adulteress or adulterer, the paramour, the home wrecker, etc., etc. Often children are told if mommy or daddy did not have a new partner then they would still be all together as a family, if mommy or daddy really loved us they would not have left us. This current attitude is a hot bed of continued dysfunction, which the current Court System seems to endorse with lengthy and inappropriate time delays and failure to correctly address core matters of many families in these transitional states. There is a new trend in the Courts to ban divorcing spouses from being able to introduce the children of that failed union to new partners they may have.

If the well being of the members of these shattered families were addressed by the family Court System expediently and justly then a continued transition for all concerned would benefit society as a whole. The adults would move on, the children would learn acceptance and any new adult relationships their parent’s would engage in would not be prejudiced against to the point of extreme alienation.

Dating in our middle ages in today’s society can be a difficult matter. There are no support groups for individuals who have begun a new relationship with a man or woman going through a divorce, pre or post. The only recourse is individual therapy and even here it is often suggested if the frying pan is too hot, jump out. Often things are not as simply worked out as this!

This article is an introductory one on matters of dating in middle age and navigating the waters of expected conflict. Mature adults have previous lives, children from other marriages and a whole host of other experiences from days gone by which come into your life along side them! The questions that should be asked are, “Is this new person right for me? Are the motives on my end genuine? Are the motives on their end genuine? Is this new relationship based on love and companionship or is it simply need based?”

At a later post I would like to offer a list of common sense guide lines and suggestions to consider when dating again in middle age. Being the significant other of a divorced person or having a new significant other in your own life while there are still unresolved issues from the past is an expect bridge to cross, I am hoping some worldly and common sense advice presented here can help you get to the other side, and to get there well!

by Karen Schaffner

(c)opyright Karen Schaffner 2009

THE REMEDIES:

2008-11-04T16:29:00.000-05:00

The Equal Parenting Party urges the public to support legislation to enact a shared Parenting law for fit parents.

Such a law would reduce the profit motive in our Court system, advance Equal Protection and Due Process of law for litigants and bring fairness and happiness for those who need it most, our children.

We urge our State lawmakers to pass a law placing a cap on legal fee in the amount of $25,000.00 absent extraordinary circumstances. Such a cap in legal fees will, without doubt, speed up the time cases take to finish by taking away the greed motivating the Court system.

Another necessary change in our law will bring accountability to and respect to our good Judges and have such care and respect given by our Judges to our citizens. Thus, the Equal Parenting Party urges the legislature to remove all legal immunity from Judges and allow them to be accountable for instances of intentional wrongdoing and gross negligence.

THE PROBLEM:

2008-11-04T16:27:00.000-05:00

Parental Alienation is often facilitated by the intervention of our Matrimonial Courts. The current state of our law enables Divorce Court Judges to order the removal of one parent from their children unless they comply and pay for the forced delivery of commercial mental health services, parenting coordinators, case managers and more.

One example involves the Nassau County "Model Custody Part" Judge. This Judge is Hon. Robert Ross. Judge Robert Ross helped found a private organization of new, unregulated "professionals" called parenting coordinators. The organization is called the Parenting Coordinators Association of New York.

These private parent coordinators are exclusively chosen by this Judge, their huge fees set by, payments schedules made by and collection overseen by this Judge. Litigants may face jail or the loss of their children if they do not pay up over time, $5,000.00, $10,000.00 and more.

This Judge also freely uses his power to force unnecessary, involuntary private mental health services on healthy litigants. Litigants are required to pay huge fees to only those "mental health service providers" approved by this Judge. The excuse used for such human rights abuses placed upon our citizens and our children who desire the love of two parents is that these Court ordered requirements are in "the best interests of children."

Equal Parenting Party: Intro

S. O. S: Significant Other Support. Relationships after separation

THE REMEDIES:

THE PROBLEM: