What do you think would be fair to men

mariaalice

If you think family law in Ireland discriminates against men, what system would you think was fair to both men and women.

For example a man and woman are about to separate they have been married 15 years and have two children aged 11 and 8....he is an accountant working full time and earns 60 K a year, she is a nurse working part time ( because she has children she is only able to work part time ) she earns 24 K a year. They have a large mortgage on a 3 bed semi. They are both aged 43

Post divorce..who gets to live in the family house, how will the other parent provide housing for themselves.
How should maintains be decided.
How should guardianship be divided.

How do you decide on all of the above and make it completely fair to both parents.

We will also say that the woman gave up full time work after her second child was born( a very common scenario ) They had a agreed this when the second child was born, he would concentrate on his career as he had the potential to to be the better earner. He did a master part time and was able to work late etc because his wife had agreed to do the majority of the child care, thus she conferring a significant advantage to him which meant because of his hard work he will become partner in his firm and have significant earnings in the futuer.... mean while she never advanced in her career because of opting to work part time and her earnings are never going to be a lot more that they are now.

When they got married they both earned the same salaries.

cantdecide

@OP why you don't you put forward a proposal as to what you consider fair.

Please then use the same example only that himself is a formerly self employed tradesman working two days a week.

mariaalice

I do not think family law discriminates ageings men per say,( although there can be some really unfathomable decisions by judges ) the problem I think is the society we have...bringing up children is horrendously expensive and the bar of what is expected of parents is rising all the time, plus housing is very expensive in our society.

I think its is almost impossible to be fair to both party's in a divorce unless you are very wealthy.

When we separated we managed it very well but we were an unusual case, even my solicitor said that.

Dravokivich

It's not about the man or the woman providing for the other man or woman after a divorce. Any monetary/property exchanges agreed should be supportive of any children and paid between them depending on ability to do so.

Your example is also extremely in favour of the woman. Leading with such is not fair on the man. The potential for earnings should never be a consideration. It's a "What if," not a "What is." As he's earning nearly 3 times more than the woman, I wouldn't be surprised if he was to provide a substantial amount towards support for the children. But I also wouldn't be surprised if that meant he was in a better position to care and provide for them, with some assistance from the woman.

But we are basing this judgement solely on gender and earnings. Is she a good mother? Is he a good father? How to they relate to each other? Is the device amicable or due to personal issues that have grown between both?

There's a lot of things more than that to be considered. Unfortunately, it seems they rarely are.

mariaalice

I do not think one adult should support another but you have to take in to account child care and if a woman ( or a man ) has give up full time work to look after children that has to be taken in to account. In that situation your are paying you ex partner to look after you children there is a significant difference between paying maintained to you ex partner to look after your children and just paying maintenance to your ex partner.

For what it is wort.. the closes to a fairer system is one in which the parent doing the majority of child care stayer's in the family home until the youngest child leaves college or is aged 23, then the house is sold and divided up.

Maintenance should not be decided by the courts but should be deiced by some expert organisation but it should be legally enforceable.

You cant get blood from a stone so if either party is under employed or unemployed there is no point in trying to enforce a maintenance order against them at that time it can always be revisited at anytime if the situation changes.

Dravokivich

You are still only using gender and potential earnings as a basis. Nothing can ever be fair if you keep throwing what if's that are bias.

mariaalice

No I am not I was very careful to say parent ( man or woman ) and ex partner( man or woman ).

mariaalice

The point about my first scenario is that it is the most common one in my experience i.e. a woman opting to take part time work in order to look after children that does not mean that men do not do so also... but again it is more common that women do it.

The Corinthian

mariaalice wrote: »

I think its is almost impossible to be fair to both party's in a divorce unless you are very wealthy.

No, I think you're confusing fairness with satisfactory. In reality, you can be fair, but this can often result in a settlement that neither party is happy with.

However to respond to your question regarding divorce in general:

To begin with assets accrued prior to the marriage and following the divorce should not be included in the settlement. The spouse has not contributed anything twoards them; he or she did not either directly or indirectly help to achieve them.

Secondly, this notion that either spouse is entitled to continue living to the same standard (as best as is possible) as when they were married either has to be abandoned or fairly administered.

If former option (my own preference), then the marriage is over and the lifestyle that came with it is over too - it's ridiculous to suggest that a marriage may be over, but not really. It's over, deal with it and move on.

If the latter, then not only financial entitlements should be considered. For example, in the traditional model where a husband goes out and earns the money and the wife stays at home and cares for the children and keeps the home, then you can hardly demand that the husband keep her to the financial level she's become accustomed to, and he loses the care level he's become accustomed to. He's entitled to compensation for the loss of the homemaker, just as much as she may be entitled to financial compensation - otherwise you're only looking to enable one spouse to continue living to the same standard (as best as is possible) as when they were married and not the other.

As to spousal maintenance and assets; these should be judged based upon the contributions that both made towards their acquisition during the marriage. If a woman sacrificed her career, stayed at home and took care of not only the children, but the husband, then she has contributed to his career and should be entitled to a share of his earnings. But this too has to be weighed against the fact that she's been financially supported up to then already for this sacrifice - she's already received some compensation for this.

Note, I specified spousal maintenance, not child maintenance. These are and should be treated separately.

Additionally, there's a limit to the value of that contribution. Benefiting from a spouse's career twenty years after the divorce makes little sense; whatever benefit their contribution made to that career has long been both recompensed and diluted by subsequent years (they may even have changed careers). This notion that one may be married fifteen years and then continue making money from their ex-spouse for the next forty is utterly ridiculous.

But overall, this attitude that a woman's place is in the home and does not have a responsibility to financially support herself, needs to be thrown out the window. This is not to say that she should be forced to get a full time job and receive no financial assistance from the husband, but this notion that she need not do so, even if she could, is absolutely irresponsible.

As to parental rights, then custody should initially be given to the primary child carer. If this is shared to any significant degree, then to the person better financially and practically capable of doing so, regardless of gender. Importantly I say initially; this is because the biggest problem with non-custodial parental rights is that they're largely unenforceable - keeping the sanction that custody may be transferred to the other parent, if one repeatedly abuses their position, is probably a good solution to this.

Finally there needs to be a final settlement. This notion that either can indefinitely 'come back to the well' for the rest of their lives is insane.

Bare in mind that this is in the context of a 'no fault' divorce. One may argue that as a contract, if one party breaks it, they should face penalties, but that is another discussion.

Death and Taxes

The OP seems to working on an accepted principle that the Family discriminates against men.
I would argue that Family law in Ireland soes not do any such thing, the law is not the problem , how it is implemented is the problem.
My solution would be to follow the practise which is common in other juristicions in which Judges in Family Law Courts are specially trained for that role, wheras in Ireland they are simply appointed to the family law courts on rotation, as in the case of the somewhat contoversial Judge Martin Nolan (google him) who having been immersed in controversy over his rulings in the Circut Criminal Court during the last few law terms has been transferred to the Family Law Courts.
Family Law is a particularly difficult area of law and so we need highly trained specialist judges handling it, as opposed to the system currently in place.
We have been able to do this with the Commercial Court (a division of the High Court that deals with the highly complex matter of Company Law) so why can't we do it with Family Law?

The Corinthian

WileyCoyote (Accelleratii Incredibus!) wrote: »

I would argue that Family law in Ireland soes not do any such thing, the law is not the problem , how it is implemented is the problem.

Actually directly and indirectly family law is de jure and de facto biased against men, even before we get to implementation and enforcement.

For example, family law covers more than just divorce, but also parental rights, and given that these blatantly and de jure discriminate against fathers (the question of guardianship, for example), it's difficult to argue that it's just implementation.

Additionally, the laws discriminate indirectly. For example I pointed out that only financial contributions are looked at in divorce, while non-financial ones are ignored. Given that to this day those contributions are still largely divided on gender lines, one can very much argue that that the bias also de facto fall into gender lines, even before we get to implementation.

This is not to say that implementation and enforcement (or lack thereof) do not make things even worse, but you really can't ignore how the law is written either.

Sleepy

I think The Corinthians point about "the lifestyle to which one has become accustomed" is very important. So many Irish divorces seem to end with the mother keeping the family home and majority custody of the children whilst the husband moves into a bedsit and sees them for a few hours on the weekend. The separation of a family means two households now need to be maintained so no matter how wealthy one is, mathematically speaking those lifestyles cannot be the same as they were pre-separation.

Personally, I'd see any assets or liabilities (for those in negative equity etc.), including pension contributions, accrued during the marriage (not before or after) as being split 50:50 and custody of the children being split 50:50 with no maintenance paid either way as the default. Any variations from this could then be negotiated: e.g. Should one parent prefer to stay home full-time / only work part-time in order to be available to the children after school and the other be willing to contribute financially towards this choice then there's no reason why this couldn't be agreed in mediation.

For example, in the case the OP outlines, it could make perfect sense for the father to contribute towards his ex wife's preference to stay home with the children rather than pay for childcare for his children during his custodial weeks. Or, she may prefer to opt for full-time work with both parents either making their own arrangements for childcare or sharing the costs of that childcare equally. Or, she might request that he sign over the equity built up in the home or to top this up to an agreed level on the agreement that she would provide the after school care until such time as the youngest has finished Junior Cert and should he agree to this that's great.

The "contributed to the other parents career" isn't a strong argument in my mind. The lesser earning partner has enjoyed a lifestyle far beyond their own income during the years of marriage as their reward for performing the majority of childcare. Were we to accept this argument as a basis for some form of spousal (rather than child) maintenance the level of factors to be brought into play would be a nightmare: the number of children to be cared for and the varying levels of care required (e.g. special needs child requiring 24hr care versus other extreme of child away in boarding school), whether any agreement regarding separation of duties can be proven (realistically this would be a his word vs her word scenario), the proportion of the time spent "at home" is actually spent minding the children versus how much of the time is spent at other things (e.g work / gym / meeting friends for coffee whilst the kids are in school etc.)

Basically, outside the obvious exceptions of cases involving one parent being a danger to the children, I'd believe in 50/50 split of assets accrued during the marriage and a 50/50 split of childcare as the only legally fair solution. Any divergence from that should be based on mutual agreement: whether by means of am amicable arrangement, legal contract arranged between their solicitors or, should both parties be willing to take part in it, some form of legally binding mediation process.

mariaalice

When we separated my husband brought me out of the family home which gave me about 50% of the cost of buying a very small home for my self. I did not look for maintains and we opted for joint guardianship. The reason I did not look for any maintains was because the child care was 50/50, and I was working full time, however my solicitor said I was entitle to maintains and asked my to sign a letter saying he had advised my of this and that I had declined his advice.

Surly the law is a reflection of the society we have chosen to construct? i.e. the law does not shape society...society shapes the law?

I am intrigued as to how people believe judges are biased against men surly that would mean they have a deliberated and thought out bias one way or another?

Another thing that intrigues me is the amount of women and men who dress up a desire for revenge or a desire to make the ex partner pay as concern for
the children's welfare.

The Corinthian makes a very good point about neither parties having an expectation of the same standard of living post separation, in the vast majority of case separation/divorce in Ireland is going to make you poorer for the rest of you life.

The Corinthian

mariaalice wrote: »

however my solicitor said I was entitle to maintains and asked my to sign a letter saying he had advised my of this and that I had declined his advice.

Which may well be a sign, although I cannot say for certain as we don't know both your circumstances, of how blatant that bias is.

Surly the law is a reflection of the society we have chosen to construct? i.e. the law does not shape society...society shapes the law?

My guess is that divorce law is still trapped in the past to a great extent. Divorce, even where available, was very much the exception rather than the rule and women who were divorced often were socially less likely to find a new husband. And they needed to find a husband, because the options open to them to support themselves financially were limited, to none.

As such these biases have continued in divorce law. On once side the marriage is ended, yet contradictory it's still considered for life (as evidenced by maintenance still being for life) and finally the system is designed to protect the weaker sex in a patriarchal society, which no longer really exists.

No one has bothered reforming this because of too many vested interests supporting the status quo, I suspect.

I am intrigued as to how people believe judges are biased against men surly that would mean they have a deliberated and thought out bias one way or another?

Who knows how this bias has taken root in the judicial system. All we know is it has.

The Corinthian makes a very good point about neither parties having an expectation of the same standard of living post separation, in the vast majority of case separation/divorce in Ireland is going to make you poorer for the rest of you life.

The frightening thing is this expectation is actually a legal one. When drawing a provision, the judge must consider "the standard of living enjoyed by the family before proceedings were instituted or before the separation occurred".

If there are children in particular, then this typically means an emphasis is to maintain that standard for them, and the custodial parent, at the expense of the non-custodial parent - of which 92% is male.

iptba

Sleepy wrote: »

The "contributed to the other parents career" isn't a strong argument in my mind. The lesser earning partner has enjoyed a lifestyle far beyond their own income during the years of marriage as their reward for performing the majority of childcare. Were we to accept this argument as a basis for some form of spousal (rather than child) maintenance the level of factors to be brought into play would be a nightmare: the number of children to be cared for and the varying levels of care required (e.g. special needs child requiring 24hr care versus other extreme of child away in boarding school), whether any agreement regarding separation of duties can be proven (realistically this would be a his word vs her word scenario), the proportion of the time spent "at home" is actually spent minding the children versus how much of the time is spent at other things (e.g work / gym / meeting friends for coffee whilst the kids are in school etc.)

Yes. I think an interesting point about this is how many of the women would swap/have swapped places with their husbands e.g. spent perhaps 50 hours on work (including commuting) (sometimes more), with sometimes other work-related activities at home e.g. trying to keep up-to-date, while their husband stayed at home? My impression is that a lot of women don't like such a scenario.
Sacrifices can be defined in various ways.
The workplace isn't always a friendly environment and can be stressful.
When all your children are teenagers or older (say), a stay-at-home mother probably has more free time on average than somebody working full-time i.e. more time-rich/less time-poor. This free time doesn't get passed on in a settlement.

Mrmoe

One aspect that I would like to see introduced would be mandatory prenuptial agreements. This would mean both parties would enter into a marraige/partnership with their eyes wide open. It would serve as a framework at least for approaching division of assets and family care. Th eprimary aim of any agreement should be the welfare of their children if any.

The Corinthian

iptba wrote: »

Yes. I think an interesting point about this is how many of the women would swap/have swapped places with their husbands e.g. spent perhaps 50 hours on work (including commuting) (sometimes more), with sometimes other work-related activities at home e.g. trying to keep up-to-date, while their husband stayed at home? My impression is that a lot of women don't like such a scenario.
Sacrifices can be defined in various ways.
The workplace isn't always a friendly environment and can be stressful.
When all your children are teenagers or older (say), a stay-at-home mother probably has more free time on average than somebody working full-time i.e. more time-rich/less time-poor. This free time doesn't get passed on in a settlement.

I think this is a complex issue that does require closer examination. On one side, some spouses do sacrifice their careers for the good of the marriage - the classic example doesn't even involve children, but where the couple will move to another country to advance the career of only one partner - the other will often end up putting their career on hold (I know of a man who did this for his wife and he effectively became a house husband).

At the same time, one cannot exaggerate this either. Just because a spouse becomes a homemaker and child carer, doesn't mean that they've realistically added half of the value to the other spouse's career. It also presumes that the employed spouse does not share any homemaking or child caring duties - there's more than a few husbands, who upon working a full day, will return home and take over from their wives.

As to child care and homemaking in general; the former is very tough in the first few years, but you correctly point out that it pretty much tapers of to almost zero by the time the children are in their teens - already by the time they're in primary school the workload has more than halved.

This leaves homemaking (be it with independent or no children) and honestly, anyone who will tell you it's a full time job is either lying or incompetent.

So I do think that many cases of 'contribution' to the marriage are in serious need of review, I would not dismiss it either.

Mrmoe wrote: »

One aspect that I would like to see introduced would be mandatory prenuptial agreements. This would mean both parties would enter into a marraige/partnership with their eyes wide open. It would serve as a framework at least for approaching division of assets and family care.

If the 'opt-out' contract introduced in the cohabitation act is anything to go by, then I'm not sure how useful prenups would be in Ireland. It states that a judge may overturn any such contract if they feel that enforcing it would result in an "injustice", so I really wouldn't want to rely too heavily on the famously consistent and unbiased opinion of our judiciary in this regard.

Th eprimary aim of any agreement should be the welfare of their children if any.

The primary aim is already the best interests of any children in a marriage, which is the principle reason that men do so badly out of divorce - the wife will have custody and benefit as a result from the preference for the children's welfare, because she lives with them and administers their costs and assets.

Based upon how the judiciary presently applies this principle, the welfare of the children would likely become a common justification for rendering null and void many prenups.

captainpants23

For a male, staying single and childfree, is a very smart way to sidestep this whole minefield.

iptba

captainpants23 wrote: »

For a male, staying single and childfree, is a very smart way to sidestep this whole minefield.

Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW) is sometimes used to men who have decided this course, due to how they feel courts/law are (/is) unfair.
However, many men would like children and many men would like to be with somebody so more fair rulings would be preferable.

captainpants23

iptba wrote: »

Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW) is sometimes used to men who have decided this course, due to how they feel courts/law are (/is) unfair.
However, many men would like children and many men would like to be with somebody so more fair rulings would be preferable.

I have never understood this mindset. I am not being smart or sarcastic. I just have never been able to fathom why any man would want that level of responsibility.

iptba

captainpants23 wrote: »

I have never understood this mindset. I am not being smart or sarcastic. I just have never been able to fathom why any man would want that level of responsibility.

Maybe it's a bit like owning a pet: for me, it's seems like too much responsibility (even though I enjoy other people's pets) but some people (including men) choose it.

I think some men don't necessarily yearn for a child, but grow to love their children that come along.

captainpants23

iptba wrote: »

Maybe it's a bit like owning a pet: for me, it's seems like too much responsibility (even though I enjoy other people's pets) but some people (including men) choose it.

I think some men don't necessarily yearn for a child, but grow to love their children that come along.

Yes, I agree with what you say here. I think that women put a lot more forethought into procreation than men do.

iptba

captainpants23 wrote: »

Yes, I agree with what you say here. I think that women put a lot more forethought into procreation than men do.

When I hear some women say "we really want a child", I'm suspicious that at least some of the time, that would be more accurately stated as "I really want a child".

shoos

iptba wrote: »

When I hear some women say "we really want a child", I'm suspicious that at least some of the time, that would be more accurately stated as "I really want a child".

Really

I know a number of men that can't wait for the day they become fathers, and plenty of women that have decided children aren't going to be in their future.

I think you get people plain not interested in having children equally in both sexes.

captainpants23

shoos wrote: »

Really

I know a number of men that can't wait for the day they become fathers, and plenty of women that have decided children aren't going to be in their future.

I think you get people plain not interested in having children equally in both sexes.

Probably it is not wise to generalise about either sexes procreational wishes. But, by their very nature, I think women are forced to put more forethought in procreation. A lot of men stumble into it, without thinking about it.

iptba

shoos wrote: »

iptba wrote:

When I hear some women say "we really want a child", I'm suspicious that at least some of the time, that would be more accurately stated as "I really want a child".

Really

I know a number of men that can't wait for the day they become fathers, and plenty of women that have decided children aren't going to be in their future.

And are lots of these women, or their husbands, going around saying "we really want a child"?

The point I was making was that I wonder whether the "we" phrase may not be accurate in some cases when talking about "really want"/similar. I already said that some men want to have kids.

This isn't the only time I question the "we want/wanted" e.g. "we really wanted a new kitchen" is another I question.

Reku

Could always be the royal "we".

While it is true that there are many women who aren't interested in kids the ones I know do admit that as they approach a certain age-bracket they are starting to get broody and doat upon children they encounter more, so unfortunately their hormones seem to be overriding their point of view a bit.
I do know quite a few guys who are looking forward to having kids though, and worried about having them while young so they'll be around for more of the kids lives, etc...
So wanting kids is far from being a women only thing IMO.

Sleepy

captainpants23 wrote: »

I have never understood this mindset. I am not being smart or sarcastic. I just have never been able to fathom why any man would want that level of responsibility.

The innate desire to pro-create is fairly common in both men and women. I think the Peter-Pan culture, and fear of adult responsibility associated with it, stems more from our societies fetishisation of youth more than the unfair bias against men in the family courts tbh.

The Corinthian

Sleepy wrote: »

The innate desire to pro-create is fairly common in both men and women.

Indeed. The main difference between the genders is that not having a 'hard deadline' for procreation, like women, men often exhibit this desire later and with less urgency - but it certainly does happen. One could still argue that 'broodiness' is more common in women, but I honestly don't know if this would be true - all I know is that it has nothing to do with the topic here.

Of course, men can still procreate without marriage or even having a relationship with a woman, as Ricky Martin proved. Of course, the need for a uterus makes it far more expensive than a woman seeking to do the same thing, but given the biases in family law, it still probably makes more sense to go down this route than jump into a relationship only because you want to make babies:

Surrigate Related Costs                   €49,486.99 
Egg Donation Related Costs                €12,267.66 
Other Fees                                 €2,602.23 
Retaining custody of your own child        Priceless

captainpants23

Sleepy wrote: »

The innate desire to pro-create is fairly common in both men and women. I think the Peter-Pan culture, and fear of adult responsibility associated with it, stems more from our societies fetishisation of youth more than the unfair bias against men in the family courts tbh.

I am not afraid of the responsibility of procreation. I just don't want it, as I view procreation as ultimately pointless. And I am definitely scared of the Irish Family Courts. That is a rational fear for any man in this country.

Sleepy

Maybe fear was the wrong word. I just see our society at the moment as being one that doesn't want to grow up.

Men and Women in their 40 and 50's refer to each other as boys or girls, and dress as such despite the fact they've been adults for more than half their lives and/or have raised children themselves. The very term "middle-aged" is seen as an insult.
Fortunes are spent on snake-oil that purports to keep people looking young, on elective surgeries and cosmetics in general.
Few people seem to be "ready" for children when their bodies are best suited for pro-creation and many are causing themselves heartache and massive expense by leaving it until too late to conceive naturally (or at all).

I'm not saying that you need to go out and buy the pipe and slippers once you hit middle age and admire those who manage to keep fit and active beyond middle age (my father-in-law to be does triathlons in his mid-60's and would put most twenty-somethings to shame in terms of fitness levels). I do, however, consider it silly when thirty-somethings behave like teenagers or students.