Mnemesyne said:
On a side note....stop with the women bashing...not all of us females are out to steal every hard earned thing you own...As a matter of fact, I walked away with just what I entered into my past marriages with...Simply because my life was worth more then quibbling over possessions....Not all women are evil, manipulative twits....please don't lump us all into the same basket just because you managed to find a bad apple or two....
It's not women bashing, it's the reality of the family court system.
Consider this: Suppose you discovered one day that you had the actual power to control other people's decision-making thoughts, and therefore their actions.
Some of you might claim you'd never abuse this power. Maybe you wouldn't. But what would constitute abuse? If I had the power, I'd make Mel Gibson be wildly enthusiastic about my book, and make it into a movie. I'd like to see what the public's reaction would be.
Would this be abuse? The book's been a bestseller without any mind-control tricks on my part, so I might be doing Mel a favor.
I'd be tempted to have more people open accounts at my firm. That might be unfair to the people who lost the accounts, though.
Hmmm... what if we just fast forward to the end? How about I contact all of the Forbes 400 and have each of them donate $1,000 a month to me? Proportionally, it would be the same as me spending an extra 50 cents per month, which is to say, not even on the radar. And I'd make them feel good about it. $400,000 a month would be far more than I could spend on the things I like.
And, obviously, women I found attractive and interesting would make certain decisions that I would find... pleasurable.
My point is most of us will do what we are allowed to do.
And when we are allowed to do something for a while, we'll probably come to view it as our right.
Example: When our Governor Mel Carnahan was running for reelection, he and his son (and a staffer) flew their private plane into a thunderstorm and crashed, killing all. As chance would have it, they crashed on undeveloped rural property owned by my mother, but that's irrelevant.
The plane was over 30 years old and had a malfunctioning vacuum system (the thing that allows the artificial horizon to function, so you can see whether you're right side up or not in the clouds.)
The vacuum system had been replaced a long time ago, and needed to be replaced again. The son had a history of pushing the weather. Many of us saw him do it, out of our airport.
The Governor's widow (a U.S. senator) sued Cessna. I thought this showed the woman had no shame. Blaming Cessna would be like blaming GM when your 1973 Chevelle with bald tires crashes when you're driving 80 mph on ice.
Cessna coughed up $400,000. They were afraid to go to trial. They were afraid the jury would see "grieving widow and mother, big rich airplane company" and open up the company treasury.
She went after the money not because she actually thought Cessna had made a faulty product. They clearly hadn't. She did it because she knew she could.
I hope rockriver has a happy, lasting marriage. But here's the thing that ought to worry him:
IF she decides to dump him and keep the kids and much of his income, she will be allowed to, just like Jean Carnahan was allowed to shake down Cessna for $400,000. And the reason she might be likely to do that is she's already exhibited bad behavior even BEFORE the wedding...
JR
