Try being a graduate of ND in a family that's been slowing edging rightward. It's enough to make someone an atheist.
That said, it seems that the graduates conducted themselves reasonably well. The publicity-seeking fucknuts outside didn't.
Oddly enough, the Washington Post published something sensible on the whole brouhaha.
I always wonder about this. Didn't both Benedict and John Paul make fairly strongly worded statements against the Iraq War? I thought that John Paul was particularly insistent on it. How does that not enter to any American's calculus about who's more in violation of the Catholic Church's notions about the sanctity of human life? I'm not expecting conservative Catholics to suddenly change their mind and not care about abortion or stemcells, but I'm always surprised at how little you get quotes from the "opposing viewpoints"--the liberal Catholics who, you'd think, would have every reason to make arguments about torture, human rights, war, and the death penalty.
Fuck the Pope with the least comfortable piece of wood that is handy. Odds are it's a crucifix.
catholic: ". . .having sympathies with all;broad-minded;liberal"
university: ". . .an institution of higher learning. . .
Damn Notre Dame-- catholic university. How dare they bestow an honorary degree on someone who disagrees with me? How dare they invite that person to speak at commencement ceremonies?
Come to think of it, damn all universities. I've had it up to here with thinking, period. Gimme dat ole time black 'n white world. It was good enough for the blah, blah, blah, blah.It's good enough for me.
Damn John Jay! Damn everyone that won't damn John Jay! Damn every one that won't put lights in his window and sit up all night damning John Jay!
From the link in 2:
That is because American Catholics -- and there are upwards of 65 million of us -- are going their own way on many matters of faith and especially on issues ranging from priestly celibacy to political candidates, and there seems to be little the bishops can do about it. If there is a true swing vote in the U.S. electorate today, it is the Catholic bloc. This disturbs conservative members of the faith, the self-styled "orthodox" who often dismiss such fickle folks as "cafeteria Catholics."True, "cafeteria Catholic" refers to Catholics who disagree with doctrine variously, but IME it tends be used almost exclusively for pro-choice Catholics.
If the Catholic Church had a bumper sticker, that could be it.Actually, they do have one, sort of: "If you want peace, work for justice" is a quote from Paul VI and a pretty popular bumper sticker. But for the theocons, Paul VI is a DFH.
It really is amazing how powerful the abortion issue has become, to the extent that otherwise intelligent, compassionate and liberal Catholics of my acquaintance will not vote for pro-choice candidates, but are willing to equivocate on war and the death penalty.
Yesterday we drove past a protest in front of a medical center that must have performed abortions. One of the signs read "Waterboard the Abortionists."
And then, contrariwise, there's this. Vomit.
Same people holding the signs are likely on the same side as those who argue that waterboarding isn't torture.
So, things are apparently improving. They're no longer advocating killing abortion clinic workers. They don't even advocate torture. They're becoming absolute pussycats :).
Didn't both Benedict and John Paul make fairly strongly worded statements against the Iraq War?
Yes, they did. The current group of protesters is worshiping the Republican Party.
Huh. That's odd, it works for me and is the same URL used in the link I first clicked on. Do you have Javascript and/or Flash turned off?
It's a screenshow of cover sheets that the Pentagon put on top-secret intelligence briefings in the period surrounding the invasion of Iraq. They're bedecked with gross inspirational bible quotes.
Neither. However, having read the description, I'm glad to be spared.
(It's an expose of the grossness, just to be clear, rather than someone's triumphal CHECK OUT OUR AWESOME COVER SHEETS page.)
13: I had to disable AdBlock to see it.
3: JPII and Benedict have been good on anti-war issues, but in general they have been supporting the right in North and South America. Really it all started when John Paul II decided to pull the rug out from under the Latin American liberation theology Becks remembers from her Catholic School Girl days.
The use of 1 Peter 2:15 (in the slideshow) is particularly sickening.
As another ND grad (hi Cala!) it didn't faze me at all that they invited Obama to speak. It fazed me when they turned down my daughter for admisson. She really didn't have the numbers/grades to get in and ms bill and I did not even suggest it, but I guess something rubbed off because my daughter decided to apply. They talk so much about the Notre Dame family blah blah blah that it still stung (me, more than my daughter) when they sent the rejection. I feel a bit estranged from that family at the moment.
And the football team is no picnic, either.
When I am SecDef all my cover sheets will quote 1 Kings 14:10: "Therefore, behold, I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam him that pisseth against the wall..."
Mostly because I think "him that pisseth against the wall" is a lovely phrase and I'd like to see it see more exposure.
||
Rosalynn and I have decided that we aren't the same people we used to be, and we need to live more separate/independent lives, and to that end I've started looking for an apartment. Our combined salaries support paying the mortgage on the house as well as renting an apartment, though we won't be saving money as effectively as we used to. (Two solid careers, no kids.) The theory is that I'll split time between living at the apartment and living at the house, until we find some kind of balance that feels better to us than what we have now. Sort of a halfway separation; we're calling it a "re-org".
What must, and what should, I tell prospective landlords about my status? On the one hand, two stable jobs, and for the time being our finances remain pooled. On the other hand, it's an awkward situation to explain.
It'll be nice to be able to do something about all the lust in my heart, of course.
|>
Tell them nothing! Lots of couples rent pieds à terre for all sorts of reasons. Lots of married suburban dudes, for example, keeps apartments in the city for use after late nights in the office, etc. (Of course, not a few of my friends, when we were in our 20s, were fucking said married suburban dudes in their city apartments kept for use after late nights in the office.)
I can't see why it's any of their concern. There might be reasons to have her on the lease, but there's no need for the landlord to know about the re-org or anything.
IANAL or a landlord, but I assume they'll run a credit check on you and see the mortgage. Whether that will raise any flags other than "Can you afford both a mortgage and a lease?", I don't know.
23: In that case, can you introduce me to some of your friends?
Tell the landlord the apartment is for extramarital affairs.
The lust has left President Carter's heat and is now acting on other parts of his body.
25: I assume they'll run a credit check on you and see the mortgage. Whether that will raise any flags other than "Can you afford both a mortgage and a lease?", I don't know.
Call me old-fashioned, but this continues to annoy me. People trying to rent an apartment are not trying to buy a house! What's with the credit check (and on one occasion in my experience, a potential landlord wanting my permission to check my bank account).
Seriously, if you have first and last month's rent, plus security deposit, why the need to do what often feels like a background check? This seems absurd to me. Yes, I'm sure landlords get screwed and are worried, but it honestly feels sometimes like one has to have a pasted note on one's forehead: OK person here, really, OK person, please proceed.
Tell them nothing! Lots of couples rent pieds à terre for all sorts of reasons. Lots of married suburban dudes, for example, keeps apartments in the city for use after late nights in the office, etc. (Of course, not a few of my friends, when we were in our 20s, were fucking said married suburban dudes in their city apartments kept for use after late nights in the office.)
I am shocked that such behavior takes place.
29: A lease is a lot like a loan. The landlord is giving you possession of a property, which is very hard to revoke before the term of the lease is up, on the promise that you will make timely monthly payments. A credit check is reasonable.
Now, in NY, they often want to see proof that you or your guarantor (preferably someone in-state) basically have 12 months rent in the bank. That's much less reasonable.
31.1: Sadly, this makes for homeless people.
But being a landlord is a business proposition, sure, I understand.
They're bedecked with gross inspirational bible quotes.
Not to mention really atrocious typography and layout. Blech.
And then, contrariwise, there's this. Vomit.
Plagiarizing my own comment over at ObWi, that's quite possibly the worst graphic design I've ever seen. I'm a little surprised Rummy didn't use Comic Sans.
29: Our landlord has taken to running full NSA security checks on prospective renters so some apartments have been vacant for years. There are at least two reasons: A) He is a bit of a fussy twit and B) local laws make it very difficult to get rid of anyone as long as their checks come in and don't bounce. Those laws meant months of hearings and such to go through to get rid of the drug dealer, the pedophile, and the drunk.
You can't pwn me, mrh! I got that comment in over at ObWi *hours* ago!
26: My friends are old and married now. And one of the young ladies in question is now Chasidic and has an infield's worth of children.
33, 34
Gov't briefers seem to be pretty bad at powerpoint. Frequently they pull slides from other briefings with different--and differently awful--schemes in, so each click brings a new horror without even the slow numbing of habituation.
Maybe the Pentagon should have gotten a geocities page.
My friends are old and married now.
Now their husbands (or they) can get apartments in the city and make sure that the circle is complete!
And one of the young ladies in question is now Chasidic and has an infield's worth of children.
Did she make sure to have a lefty to play first?
35: Our landlord has taken to running full NSA security checks on prospective renters so some apartments have been vacant for years.
Really, it takes years to find someone who passes a full NSA security check? (I have no idea how I would come out.) Well, the world is full of drug dealers, pedophiles, and drunks, it seems, so it's the only way to be sure.
I misread the quoted "infield's" as "infidel's."
Pretending an ex-nazi is infallible is not a path to enlightenment. You're doing it wrong.
The theory is that I'll split time between living at the apartment and living at the house, until we find some kind of balance that feels better to us than what we have now. Sort of a halfway separation; we're calling it a "re-org".
This worked great for Per Månsson in the Maj Sjöwall / Per Wahlöö police novels. Try this one for tips.
Call me old-fashioned, but this continues to annoy me. People trying to rent an apartment are not trying to buy a house! What's with the credit check (and on one occasion in my experience, a potential landlord wanting my permission to check my bank account).
I mentioned in some thread here recently the whole "not getting a credit card in college = no credit rating and no easy way to get one" thing. What really made it problematic was precisely such a ridiculous credit check to get an apartment. They knew my income, which was plenty large enough to pay the rent, but still they didn't want to give me the apartment. It got sorted out eventually, but it was a pain.
48: but still they didn't want to give me the apartment.
Yeah. I had a hell of a time finding a place last time I was looking. Several places my housemate and I liked and wanted turned us down for sketchy-looking credit details, chiefly on my housemate's part (I got lucky, and look fine on paper). So drat. But you don't ditch a friend on that account. We've wound up in the current place without turning into miscreants.
On the silly checking-on-things front, years ago the SPCA wouldn't let me adopt a homeless cat because I was a student (grad student) with an out-of-state license. This meant, to them, that I was a transient who might torture or abandon the cat. Boo. I took in a pregnant alley cat in the end, which worked out fine.
I ... don't know. I wanted the SPCA people to take one look at me and realize that I did not look like someone who was going to mistreat my cat. But, um, they can't and shouldn't go on appearance and demeanor.
I'm a little surprised Rummy didn't use Comic Sans.
Not to mention really atrocious typography and layout. Blech.
Swi-pull
My current place did a criminal background check, but not a credit check that I'm aware of. (Of course, I might not have been aware of it.) I found that annoyingly intrusive, even despite the lack of a criminal history.
49: Some of the animal rescue people are just plain nuts. My kid the vet says some don't want a stray scanned for a RFID chip on the grounds that if the owner/"guardian" really cared they'd have checked with all the organizations in the vacinity. And a requirement for multiple home inspections is excessive, I think.
requirement for multiple home inspections is excessive
The Humane Society only asked for one reference before letting me take home my dog. Home inspections seem kind of crazy.
49: They may get tired of students abandoning their pets at semester's end.
37: Surely you've got a divorcee or two hanging around? I wouldn't have the first notion what to do with a twentysomething.
If I were less tired I'd write something about how background checks, etc. are the price we pay for living in communities where our reptuations have to be determined by proxy rather than firsthand knowledge, and where the unintended consequences of laws and regulations create a vicious circle of more paperwork and compliance.
Living in a state where it takes two years and a vast amount of time and energy to get someone evicted,* I can well understand the interest in being conservative in deciding who to rent to, and in making judgments based on broad heuristics. From the landlord's POV, a few false positives and a bunch of extra hassle for the tenants is no big deal. From a tenant's point of view, it's much more onerous and expensive -- and of course, if you happen to be one of those false positives, a major problem.
*Due to well-intentioned laws meant to prevent people from being thrown out on the street arbitrarily.
54: Well, luckily I've taken care of all my troublesome forms of appearance now, and should not have trouble adopting a pet from a shelter in future, unless they require people to be homeowners.
I don't think I've shown ID for any of the sublets I've had over recent years, but with one exception they've all been about 2 months or less. A couple have asked for deposits, but only one was the equivalent of a full month's rent. The exception was a shady landlord I rented from for 6 months. Some of his tenants had been in his houses for years, but he didn't seem to have a problem with people wanting to stay. And even he didn't ask for deposits or credit checks.
CATHOLICISM IS NOT A RELIGION!
I wanted the SPCA people to take one look at me and realize that I did not look like someone who was going to mistreat my cat. But, um, they can't and shouldn't go on appearance and demeanor.
I suspect it wasn't that as much as it was the "student" status. Students often leave over the summer, move from apartment to apartment (which might not allow pets), and there are always a fair number of requests at the end of the year looking for a home for a cat.
58: If Jimbo couldn't come up with even one idea of what to do with a twentsomething, I'm not sure how much use he'd be to me.
I'm not sure how much use he'd be to me
There's still opening jars and killing bugs.
56: The divorcé(e)s are generally so because they hopped the fence. So I only have divorcés on offer.
I wouldn't have the first notion what to do with a twentysomething.
Luckily, we come with our own ideas about what we'd like done.
63. I've got the second, third, and subsequent notions down -- it's just that pesky first notion I have trouble with.
Twice in two years, I've had divorcing husbands beeline for me, telling me of their longheld feelings. (I'd suspected but ignored them, because I hate drama.) It is flattering, but they have so much sorting and processing to do that they don't have a lot left over for someone who is looking for something serious.
I wonder if divorced men walk away with more emotional processing than divorced women. The divorced women I've known (and Will has backed me up on this) tend to be in a "I am so tired of dealing with relationship crap and want something much more low key." mode. Di comes off this way, too, but I'll let her speak for herself.
The two statistics I hear most often are that women are more likely to initiate divorce and men are more likely to remarry. Generally this speaks to the fact that men have the better deal in most marriages. I don't know how this plays out in the emotional state of the recently divorced.
I did a ton of processing post-divorce, but I'd say less than half was directly divorce related. That's still a buttload, though.
A buttload is half a ton? I thought is was more than a ton.
Huh-- is it not possible for the emotional drama to shake out before the divorce, for dissolution to be the predictable and undramatic end of a partnership? Whether or not people want something new after that, with another person who has a will and a history is another matter, but IME divorces are a summing up of an existing fact rather than exploding drama. Probably depends on when in the dissolution people decide to formalize the breakup.
Actually, a couple of exploding dramas too, just not people I know or knew well.
72: It varies by butt, of course. Yours must be enormous, rob.
Generally, I'd say that whoever was holding onto the belief that the marriage would work out is going to be the one who does more emotional processing after the fact. The partner who saw the breakup coming is already doing his or her processing in advance, and may just be better prepared for dating life after the split. The one who thought they could make it work may end up feeling more abandoned, self-doubting, and bewildered. I don't think it matters whether one partner was seeing someone else or whatever; it seems it's often the case that when men cheat on their wives, they are still the ones who fully expect the marriage will stay together until it doesn't.
I don't want to suggest it's gendered, really, but Rob's 70 does seem suggestive that men who divorce are less aware of how much the marriage was necessary to their ability to maintain a life. While a woman may leave a marriage pretty aware of what comfort and stability she will lose by it, a man may not be thinking through what that loss will constitute for him until it's a done deal.
lw, I've seen it happen where people do a lot of the emotional work before the dissolution. But even so, when they separate, it looks to my outsider's eye that each has to do an awful lot of learning how to be single again. The dating part is some of it, but stuff like understanding how to spend evenings is another hard part.
75.1 is right on the money. Subtract the men cheating and it might as well have been written by someone following me through the whole process.
Probably depends on when in the dissolution people decide to formalize the breakup.
Also on how long it takes. Divorces are not overnight processes, so even if the couple has everything emotionally sorted before the process begins, that's an awful lot of time of having the other person in your life, with whom you have to argue about property and money.
It looks like the relevant statistic here is that women are more likely to initiate divorce. That means they've seen it coming, and have done the processing.
When my ex was processing his divorce, it was an interesting situation because (a) he fully expected that, although his wife was cheating on him, she'd never actually leave, but (b) he was the primary homemaker and childcare provider. So when she left, he had all this grueling emotional processing to do, feeling abandoned and humiliated, but his life was actually a lot easier without her. I think it created a really emotionally confusing situation for him, because while he enjoyed the freedom of not hosting dinner parties for her, cleaning up after her, doing endless chores for her, etc., she had also basically taken his kids away for half the week and put them in a situation in which no one had time to take care of them the way he did. But beyond that, I think he was just shocked that she would leave when he was so attentive to her needs. He always thought she'd come around and come back to him, even after he realized he hadn't been happy with her.
Dating with him in that position was difficult. He was delighted with the freedom of a light, low-key relationship, but he quite obviously was still feeling hurt and abandoned. Weird times for everyone.
You know how when the power goes out and, even though you're doing something like looking for candles with a flashlight, you keep flipping the light switch every time you walk into a room? That's what it's like immediately after a separation. No matter how much you think you've prepared yourself, there are just so many things that have been habitual, taken-for-granted parts of your life that suddenly aren't there any more. It's profoundly disorienting, even though most of those things are extremely trivial and not at all emotionally important.
That means they've seen it coming, and have done the processing.
I don't think that follows. One could initiate divorce following the discovery of an affair (isn't that fairly common?), and still be processing lots of new information.
That's a very apt description of what it's like when someone dies, too.
One could initiate divorce following the discovery of an affair (isn't that fairly common?), and still be processing lots of new information.
I think finding out new, deal-breakingly awful information would be in a different category, and that the description in 75 holds very, very often.
Our pre-adoption home inspection struck me as unusual but it turned out to serve two purposes: (1) verifying that we did not live in a sty and (2) it gave our animal rescue folks a chance to say, yeah, they're probably going to destroy those curtains, so keep an eye on things. At least 90% of what they discussed were things we already knew but it was much more a consultation than an inspection and I had no trouble seeing the value from their side.
Multiple home inspections, though? That is frankly madness.
80 is interesting. If she was inviting a lot of people over for dinner and focussed solely on being the breadwinner and not raising the kids, maybe that was a sign that she felt trapped and bored by domesticity.
My objective review of my own transit across the matrimonic sun suggests that divorcing guys are a tempting mess, but divorced guys are a catch.
86: AWB will have to speak, but I don't know that she was the breadwinner exactly. I thought that AWB's ex was independently rich.
If you like divorced guys so much why didn't you marry one, Wrongshore?
I will sign on to the sentiment in 75, although I think my ex and I kind of leapfrogged one another in this regard. I was convinced for longer that the marriage as I understood it would work out, but early on I decided that I would come out of whatever happened stronger, better, faster ... than how I was going in. And I did. Viva therapy.
I think my ex, on the other hand, believed for a long time that we would reach some decadent European accommodation that would allow us to maintain a friendship, have occasional sex, talk about movies (god I miss that), and after a few years re-connect and have children. When I initiated legal proceedings, she was honestly surprised, and I don't know how she handled it from there.
88: He bought their house and paid for the kids' private school with inherited money, but her income paid for day-to-day living. It made for a pretty ugly financial situation in the divorce because she wanted half of what the house was worth (2 million) but did not want to pay child support. He was certainly property-rich but income-poor. A different man would have sold the house and gotten more work after she left him, but he kept seeing himself as the one providing a stable home and an available parent for the kids. It was ugly all around.
Generally, I'd say that whoever was holding onto the belief that the marriage would work out is going to be the one who does more emotional processing after the fact. The partner who saw the breakup coming is already doing his or her processing in advance, and may just be better prepared for dating life after the spli
Not my experiece at all. I tend to think that my own dating reticence is primarily a product of ongoing emotional processing while finding a quick replcement allowedUNG to avoidtoo much unpleasant processing.
It looks like the relevant statistic here is that women are more likely to initiate divorce. That means they've seen it coming, and have done the processing
Trust me. Initiating the divorce is only just the tip of th iceberg of emotional processing.
finding a quick replcement allowedUNG to avoidtoo much unpleasant processing
Maybe. In my experience, it only postponed it 'til that one predictably fell apart. Which then added a whole other layer of processing.
Also, 80 sounds much as UNG would describe our marriage/divorce, suggesting one might could take it with a grain of salt. Right down to the affair, which, no. But he could conceive of no other plausible reason I might be unhappy with him.
finding a quick replcement allowedUNG to avoidtoo much unpleasant processing
You can add this one to the pile, Di -- I suspect this is how my sadly un-nicknamed ex thinks of me.
In other news, an interview with a childhood babysitter just came up on the Rumpus. I think her new art project is going to make me have to backfill my memories with an enormous crush.
Yeah, I was definitely the quick-replacement figure who ameliorated the processing until he figured out that I was actually getting in the way of him getting on with his life. That took two and a half years for him to figure out.
While it seems like UNG's GF is a really nice person, I wonder whether the two of them have similar ideas about the longevity of the relationship.
The two statistics I hear most often are that women are more likely to initiate divorce and men are more likely to remarry. Generally this speaks to the fact that men have the better deal in most marriages.
there are many other interpretations for that stat.
In my experience, it only postponed it 'til that one predictably fell apart. Which then added a whole other layer of processing.
in my (limited) observations, quick replacements have worked well.
He bought their house and paid for the kids' private school with inherited money, but her income paid for day-to-day living. It made for a pretty ugly financial situation in the divorce because she wanted half of what the house was worth (2 million)
it seems like you ought to have a prenup if you're plowing millions of dollars in inherited money into what would be community property in a marriage. Wonder what Will's view is on prenups.
While it seems like UNG's GF is a really nice person, I wonder whether the two of them have similar ideas about the longevity of the relationshi
I suspect they do, actually. He doesn't see it as a rebound; it's true love. What I do wonder is if the have the same expectations for marriage/children. I believe she wants both.
Wonder what Will's view is on prenups.
He's probably against them, on the grounds that they reduce paying work for him, unless he draws them up.
I think will weighed in on this question once. I want to say he thought they were a bad idea because it was so hard at the start of a marriage to predict what the situation will be ten years down the road. But maybe that was my argument and he thought it was dead wrong?
He is -- he's pro. Barring very special circumstances (you are Paul McCartney or similar; you have significant assets in which some other family member has an interest that you want to be superior to that of your new spouse), I'm mostly con. Generally, in our society, married couples are expected to behave as if they're an economic unit -- there's no such thing as a transfer of wealth from one to the other, because each mutually owns all of the other's wealth as part of the nature of the marriage.
That makes divorcing a huge hassle, but it's also the basis for a lot of perfectly normal marital behavior: if people really thought that there was a sense in which you could coherently say that one spouse within an ongoing marriage was poorer than the other spouse -- that a high-earner with a spouse who didn't work for pay was making a gift to the spouse by paying for food and housing rather than spending funds owned communally by the couple on supporting them both -- they'd behave very differently.
I can imagine a system where marriage didn't involve a pooling of property being workable, but I think it'd be a huge jump from our current society, and incremental movement toward such a system is going to create suffering in people relying on old norms.
103 articulates quite nicely why I don't think I could ever remarry. Having discovered the concept of "mine," I don't think I would ever be able to go back to "ours". And yet sharing a home and expectations of permanenc without some conception of "ours" seems profoundly dysfunctional.
103: but isn't one spouse often "poorer" than the other, under our current legal structure? Most people don't generally think that way, but the only assets that are "pooled" are those that are earned during the marriage. Any wealth either spouse brings to the marriage belongs to that spouse alone--i.e. is not split in a divorce.
103-104 are great. Marriage is serious business. The two become one financial flesh, and there is great ripping and tearing and gnashing of teeth and wailing when they are pulled asunder.
At some primitive, atavistic level I don't really believe in divorce, but I realize the total lack of realism there. I have solved this on a personal level by not getting married, the only way to both maintain my primitive beliefs and be realistic.
Meaning: your "each mutually owns all of the other's wealth as part of the nature of the marriage" isn't really right--it's only true for wealth earned during the marriage, not brought to the marriage. And preexisting wealth is where prenups typically come into play.
107: no, I think it might come into play for wealth brought to marriage, which is precisely why you would need a prenup to address it.
107: Well, on a state by state basis, that's only sort of true -- doesn't pre-existing wealth have to be kept separate to keep from being regarded as community property under some circumstances? Situations like the one of AWB's ex are complicated; if the wife's name was on the house, it's hard to argue she wasn't agreed to be a half-owner.
109: It was doubly complicated by the fact that they rented out the top two floors and the garden-level floor to renters, and she was claiming she wanted half the rent payments from the two and a half years after she moved out, when he was serving as landlord. His grandmother's money, her name also on the house, his labor as landlord and maintenance expenses, etc. Basically, it made me never want to get married ever.
Basically, it made me never want to get married ever.
Well, not getting married ever works -- a better way to think of it is don't give things away with mental reservations. When he bought a house with her name on it, he gave her half the value of the house. If he really believed she was a half owner, paying her half the income from rental of the house wouldn't feel all that unjust.
Prenups are a much better idea than sloppily giving things away while still believing you own them free and clear, but from a marital point of view I think throwing everything in the pot and understanding that you've done so is better still.
oesn't pre-existing wealth have to be kept separate to keep from being regarded as community property under some circumstances?
I think so. If the wealth is used (e.g., on a downpayment for a house), then it's part of the marital property.
If assets brought into a marriage become "comingled" with assets that are acquired during the course of the marriage (which, practically, they always do), then things of course become complicated, and it's very difficult to sort out (without a prenup). And I think states vary as to whether things like increases in the value of a home that occcurred during a marriage should be considered part of the marital property or solely the property of the spouse who brought the house into the marriage (and if you've been married for a while, this could be much of the value of the house). But I thought the basic level issue that premarital property belongs to the spouse who originally owned it was fairly universal. Of course I don't know the rule in all 50 states.
110: of course, he'd have had a great argument that his expenses ans a reasobqale amount for the value of his services shouldhave been deducted from the rent prior to dividing it up.
If assets brought into a marriage become "comingled" with assets that are acquired during the course of the marriage (which, practically, they always do), then things of course become complicated, and it's very difficult to sort out (without a prenup).
Which is why you should keep your record collections alphabetized separately until you are really, really sure you are committed to each other.
ans a reasobqale
Isn't it a little early to be hitting the sauce, di?
116: this is why it was better when I couldn't comment from my phone...
113: We probably mean the same thing here, but 'commingling' isn't, AFAIK, just an administrative problem. My belief (and IANADivorceL, and all of this stuff varies state by state) is that even if AWB's ex had put the down-payment down out of an inheritance, and had made all of the payments out of a separately held pre-marital bank account, if the wife's name was on the deed, she's a half owner regardless of who paid. Maintaining it as a separate asset would have required identifying it as such, regardless of how easy it would have been to trace where the funds for it came from.
(There's a good chance this isn't true in every state, but I think it's more likely than not, more states than not.)
118: because you would start drinking later?
119: Ah, but the question is, does she legally get half of what the house is worth now, or half of the down payment they made, since he has been paying the mortgage ever since?
199: oh, I absolutely agree about the name on the deed thing. (Meaning: I actually have no idea what the answer is there, but I'd be a little surprised if her-name-on-the-deed meant anything other than that the house was half-hers. ) I wasn't talking about that in particular.
It seems like marriage is great if you don't divorce and aren't miserable. It can definitely empower you beyond your individual capacities to fully, genuinely join forces with another person. It's just that if you don't make the fusion work you're more fucked than if you'd stayed single. Some kind of conservation of energy law at work. A higher-stakes and chancier bet than you appreciate when you're young and starry-eyed.
122: Paying it out of income that came in while they were married? That's marital property. And I'd argue that mortgage payments made even with pre-marital savings probably become marital property when applied to a mortgage on a house owned in both names.
Of course, any payments he's made on it since the divorce are all his.
117 and 121 are truly cruel. I've slowly learned not to comment on blogs (or type anything generally, or have important conversations) when piss drunk. It doesn't come naturally to me. Next step: learning not to get piss drunk so often. This has been complicated by the fact that I rarely drink more than a drink or two at a time anymore (damn kids), so what a few years ago would have been moderate drinking now nearly knocks me out. The fact that I somehow lost about 30 pounds probably doesn't help either. I had a few drinks* with friends a few weeks ago, and can't recall about 3/4 of the evening. I was horrified when I learned some of the things I said.
* A few beers (3-4?), one martini and a bottle of merlot.
124: Yep. Well, there's kids. If you want kids, you probably wouldn't have them outside of a relationship that's either marriage or almost as enmeshed as marriage. So divorce, messy and unpleasant as it is, might still come off better than lifelong singlehood for people who want to be parents.
126: I can't think of a time you've posted anything embarrassingly incoherent here -- you're mostly just funnier than other drunk posters because no one else typoes their own name.
I don't know what "probably" means in 124, but it's certainly far from universally true.
130: PGD, being of the boy persuasion, doesn't really have that route open to him.
126: the key is to convince your co-blogger to accidentally delete the archives which contain your incredibly embarrassing, widely-linked 4000 word drunken post about music.
Well, no, he probably can't join "Single others By Choice" (although I'm not sure about that--I haven't read their membership guidelines), but he could adopt a kid, couldn't he?
126: You know what's really embarrassing? I get drunk after about two and a half drinks now, and I'm a lot heavier than I was when I could drink a lot more. If I ever got back to my pre-baby weight (which I'm not holding my breath about), I'd probably fall over looking at a Manhattan.
LB speaks the truth in 127 and 131.
And even some single mothers by choice would prefer to have their children within a marriage .
128: luckily, the misspelled names make the worst transgressions ungooglable...
It isn't that easy to arrange even if you are of the girl persuasion.
138: Both "Btock" and "Borck" get several hits on google.
139: How's that going, if you're talking about it? If you're not, consider nosy question withdrawn.
I thought community property only applied to community property states and the other states were generally equitable division which doesn't have to be 50-50.
Doesn't have to be 50-50, and I don't know details, but my sense is that it tends to be fairly close to an even split of jointly held property.
AB & I, very thoughtfully, had no assets going into the marriage, so nothing to worry about (I suppose that, technically, I owned 1/10 of a new Jetta) - it's all communal. I can't even imagine how we'd break down income since then, but of course we plan not to.
RE: the mental processing of breakups, I think that Bad Old GF & I had spent so long fighting that there wasn't that much left for either of us to process. 6 weeks before she announced that it would be over (in a proposed scenario quite remarkably like Jimmy's, btw), we'd had probably our biggest fight in 5 years (since the last time I'd kissed another girl and told her about it), and I nearly went to Canada for a week's planned vacation without her, but there was a 5 am rapprochement. But I think that kind of laid the groundwork, and the fact that the subsequent 6 weeks simply bore out that the relationship was dead (that plus she started dating a guy from work who, unlike me, thought she was great), meant the breakup moment wasn't stunning.
Also, it was 6 weeks from the breakup discussion to me actually moving out, so there was more processing there. I was basically fine once I moved out (always already disengaged from the relationship), whereas she, being crazy, took longer. I think the last fucked-up interaction was maybe 6 months after the breakup discussion (which isn't to say she was done processing, but that she was at least processing in ways that didn't involve late night drunken phone calls to me).
The fact that I somehow lost about 30 pounds
Ooh! Have you tried looking on the basement steps? I just found something that's been missing for like 13 months right there by the rag bin.
If it's not there, check back. I have some other ideas.
I thought community property only applied to community property states and the other states were generally equitable division which doesn't have to be 50-50.
I was gonna say that I agreed with LB excepting that I thought payments made after divorce still went to the jointly held property, so payments would not be credited separately, unless the divorce decree essentially removed one party's name from the mortgage. (Which is what usually happens.) Community property would/should apply when only one spouse is listed as owner of a property (or anything else) and the property was purchased during the marriage.
max
['In some states... of being.']
I'm not especially loving my options. In fact, whichever option I'm looking at is the one I hate until I return to a different choice. Sperm banks are really unpleasantly medical and there will not be a father to help. I cannot find any local structure for finding a co-parent, but I would really like a dad involved (because I very much like how men parent). Co-parenting seems really fraught and dangerous, except compared to going it alone. I'm not pleased.
I took a couple week break from thinking about it, which has been very pleasant.
Co-parenting seems like a bit of a nightmare to me, barring particular circumstances where you know and trust someone well enough that you would marry them except for complete and total failure of sexual attraction. Anything less close than that, you've got a kid who's going to be at least one of the most important things in your life, and someone you hardly know has equal control over their upbringing. In your shoes, I'd think going it alone was inferior to in a relationship, but way superior to co-parenting with someone you're not really really close with.
(because I very much like how men parent).
Beware that there is a lot of variation within the male population with this trait.
A higher-stakes and chancier bet than you appreciate when you're young and starry-eyed.
This is probably a good description of a lotof weddings. Ironically, getting married seems like a conservative, stable thing to do when you're 25.
(because I very much like how men parent)
There are plenty of fantastic fathers out there, who I do not mean to diminish. But the snarky side of me thinks "Sure, because dads get to be Good Cop," when I read this.
But the snarky side of me thinks "Sure, because dads get to be Good Cop," when I read this.
If HP is already playing you off one another you guys are in trouble.
So not a mom, but 148 makes a lot of sense to me. As does 149. (E.g., in my family, Dad was and will always be Bad Cop.)
Sorry, Megan.
But the snarky side of me thinks "Sure, because dads get to be Good Cop," when I read this.
are you kidding? My dad definitely wasn't the good cop -- "when your father gets home" was a threat taken very seriously when I was a kid.
I'm listening to "American Idiot" over and over again, I can't believe I didn't hear this when it came out. Not only is it totally infectious and awesome musically, it feels like the definitive song of this decade. Sums up perfectly the experience of seeing the government go nuts and the country and the media follow right along.
The traditional cultural image is "strict father" vs. "nurturing mother," and this image plays out in a lot of the ways behaviors and approaches to ethics get coded "male" and "female."
Yet because dads are more likely to be secondary care-givers, we actually have far more opportunity to be lenient. We typically don't see the payback if the kids get hopped up on sugar and don't do their homework. Thus when dads are strict, it is very much a decision, either conscious or unconscious.
The realization by many dads that they can be the good cop is one force behind the new stereotype, doofus dad. (The other major force is the family sit-com, which was actually just relying on the fact that that reversals of power structure are funny.)
For what? Just 'cause I'm in the situation? If that's what you meant, then thank you for empathy.
My dad was "Meaner But Less Obviously Crazy Cop." Mom screamed all the time and was paranoid, but Dad could insult you in ways you'd never ever forget.
Ah yes, that well known interrogation tactic: Mean-cop/crazy cop.
Alright, I'm going home. First time biking home this spring!
An acquaintance of mine who was a producer on the Daily Show told me that the interview technique she and Colbert had with their interviewees was "good cop/retarded cop." Watch the "gay orange juice" segment for evidence.
kids get hopped up on sugar
For the record, there is no evidence whatsoever for this correlation.
Also, I am definitely the bad cop. Ab sometimes complains that I intervene when she doesn't want/need my "assistance." But holy shit, I am not putting up with a fit over nothing that is escalating to a hurricane in mid-day.
That said, I think AB would probably agree with the parenthetical in 147. Iris is, at this very moment, goading me to come in and read the Odyssey to her. "OK, I'm snug in bed. Daaaddy. Daddy?"
We may need to talk, Heebie. Do you check your unfogged email address?
160.last: Your love for your daughter is really great to read about, JRoth. I've meant to mention that before.