Geldof on marriage - Grrr!

[Sheila]

Anyone see this appallingly unbalanced programme last night? Bob's solution to the current breakdown in marriage is:

1)Women (who initiate 70% of divorces) should learn to put up with men's emotional illiteracy.
2)Divorce should be made more difficult.
3) Single parents should be made less well off (hah!)

Clearly Bob's still smarting from being thrown over for Michael Hutchence ("Taj Mahal of crotches" - that must've hurt).

As for Germaine Greer's contribution - how that woman can call herself a feminist any more is beyond me!

Sorry for the rant but I'm still fuming that someone with such ill-thought out views is given air time. I also worry that his views might influence policy-makers. As if reducing benefits to low income families (single parent or not) is going to decrease the divorce rate!

I also don't agree that the mother should automatically set all the rules for a child when that child is living with their father and another family. When my stepdaughter is with us, we do what we think is right. She may go to bed half an hour after her bedtime at her mother's, but just as my dh wouldn't demand that her mother change her rules, I don't think she should demand we change ours either. And I think that telling kids that they must do X or Y in someone else's house simply isn't on and puts children in an impossible position. Putting kids in danger or neglecting them is quite a different matter of course, for both parties.

aloha about your driving!
it's good that things have calmed down for you, but as you say a real pity that part of their relationship has to be carried out secretly to avoid upsetting the mum. children even from a v young age willingly take on such burdens (to avoid conflict) and it must affect them (an old friend had an alcoholic mother and virtually brought up her little sister without bothering her mum with any extra problems along the way)

Bundle, I agree, there is far too much secrecy. I think it's wrong. I wish it wasn't like that. When I met dh I though, oh, they split up years ago, she left him and is living with another man so everything will be fine and we can be friendly and cooperative, but it didn't work out like that at all. She's never, ever spoken to me, won't even look at me (!) but she used to be very rude about me to my stepdaughter. And she used to grill her about any slight deviation to her rules at our houses (ie she'd decide that no bread was allowed in her diet, for no medical reason at all) and then phoned up dh to rant, which is why I feel a bit sensitive about the idea that fathers must automatically obey mothers.

!

Aloha I agree with you re little things like make up, bedtimes half an hour earlier etc., but that's assuming that the rules in each home, while different, are reasonable and work for each family unit. I'm talking about serious undermining, like not ensuring homework gets done, allowing v. young kids up till midnight so that their sleep pattern is screwed up for the next three days, telling them it's OK for them to stay out until 4 o'clock in the morning when Mum says they have to be back at midnight, etc. - that sort of unnecessary, destructive undermining, as opposed to just having a normal level of difference.

Oh and I agree your stepdaughter's mother sounds a bit of a loon.

caligula - just to through another spanner in as it were - quite often we read that when a child is abused it can quite often be by a 'step father' or boyfriend - they have no blood tie to the child and can be easily frustrated by a demanding child - I know this isn't generally the case and isn't that widespread (I hope) but it is another point to consider. (might be going off at a tangent a bit here!)

Caligula, I would totally agree with all of that. I actually think we are quite conventional/strict parents in that bedtime means bedtime, we eat home -cooked food etc... I am sure that the vast, vast majority of mothers are pretty reasonable, but when you are on the other end of someone who appears hostile and you know that she has 'control' of the child and can stop her coming, it's genuinely frightening. I think I'm pretty strong, but I used to shake all over with the stress sometimes. I think it's hard for most of us mothers to imagine how scared a good father can be that he will not see his child again, or lose his intimacy with them because of very limited contact. I'm not talking about loons, flakes or nasty violent men here, of which there seem to be too many

JT I think that's a real danger, which is why I don't have a boyfriend!

Not really, but I think it's a whole other topic. It's definitely something I'm aware of though, and I would have thought most responsible mothers are, which is why anyone with any sense would take it very very slowly with a new relationship.

I don't think it has anything to do with fathers getting jittery though. I think they get jittery at the thought of any father figure substitute near their kids, abuser or not. As I think mothers do about potential usurpers of their position. It does feel like sending your children into the lion's den, especially if you feel the new person is hostile to you and/ or your child, and I think if we all had more awareness and sympathy for that, a lot of trouble would be avoided. Having said that, some get more hysterical than others!

Message withdrawn

sorry this is a bit late but 'through'? how embarrassing - of course I meant 'throw' tch, tch!

My MIL never stood in the way of her ex seeing his sons. He could simply never be bothered and left the county and made no contact for three years. He dd pay the maintenence but that was all.

Another relative split from his wife but still saw his kids every day, a very amicable set up, but only possible because both parties were reasonable and knew that it was in the best interests of the kids

There was a vey interesting article by the exwife of Nigel Planer in the press not lat long ago. (another man active in the dads right movement). She was very bitter and said that he would often miss out on seeing his kids to go to Dads rights meetings! Odd!

Nigel Planer did respond to that though denying all her allegations!

I'd have been interested to read that. She did sound very bitter in the article. Do you know if his article is available on line?

He wrote a letter hmb - so it was just in the letters page the following Sunday. To me, it smacked of 2 people who don't get on scoring points off each other, to be honest.

mrsflowerpot, the trouble with those kinds of articles is they only ever print one side (evening standard worst at this, say with dandelions cure cancer type headline, with no balance from conventional docs) so the other side often feels compelled to reply in anyway possible. best to let reporter talk to both and sum up what they heard, imo.

I missed BG's marriage rant but had heard enough about it to know it was one-sided garbage. watched last night's and am convinced some of the fathers were acting.

BUT still love Bob though. He'd be so great to have an argument with. He's hurting, the poor man is hurting. Not read all teh thread but is he still with his girlfrind? He said something about being on his own last night?

that's very cynical Tinker!

I think unfortunately we all get clouded by our own experiences, just because we have certain assumptions about our partners or ex-partners that doesn't mean the basis of our law in this century should be so outdated

I found it illuminating to see how, even though a majority are on the side of the mother (in this thread) gaining custody, as soon as a poster we admire and respect .. step forward aloha .. starts to talk about it from the father's side, the automatic response is to agree that the real mother is a witch .. no offence aloha but interesting I though

it's these very allegiances (that even though we don't know the person in RL we automatically side with their side of the story .. and I include myself in this) that IMHO should be removed from the fundamental legal position

In the end it comes down to the fact that some people are great, some are OK and some can be arseholes. And that is true for both men and women. Some men are arseholes, dangerous and violent and shouldn't be left anywhere near their ex Ps and kids. And some women are arseholes who go out of their way to stop good men from seeing their kids and poison them against their dads. Most of us are not, be we male or female.

Absolutely spot on, hmb -and I don't think there can ever be legislation to allow for that.

Which is why the law needs to reflect that. atm, it completely ignores the fact that either men or women can be arseholes. And all the debate is around how we can change it to reflect that mothers can be, but not how fathers can be.

But luckily, what should be remembered is that most people manage to come to some kind of civilised arrangement where they can co-operate. The women who deny access for no reason are in a tiny minority, and the men who use their contact rights as an opportunity to wind up their partners are also in a minority. What is quite amazing is how many people who have been through the terrible emotional upset, betrayal and pain of a split manage to put it behind them and get on with trying to do the best for their children. I think that so often gets lost in all this discussion about the extreme cases.

Oops sorry Marthamoo posts crossed. I agree with you that the law can't fully reflect it, of course, but can do a bit better than at present.

AMFS - I put my thread on because thats what I truly feel. I didn't do it because I was influenced by aloha. I don't even know who she is and have never read any postings at all. Some of us can actually form an opinion of our own you know.

So to sum it all up all us women should stay at home and raise kids and cook tossers like Sir Bob dinner when he gets in at night and then when things go belly up we gladly hand over the kids and go and get a job although we have no skills as we have been tied to the sink FFS and we should be happy with this - I bet he is also an advocate of women getting fuck all in finacial settlement in divorce saying that we haven't done anything whilst he has been out to work too!!

My lovely SDP said he is a great unwashed tosser who needs a good haircut and a bigger pair of balls and to stop fucking moaning and get on with his life!!