I am enjoying this thread and have not expressed an opinion on the thread's current topic due to my not seeing any point in doing so.
I think it's interesting that 97% of the alimony is paid by one sex. I wonder how they calculated that. Is it of the total amount or the percent of cases?
I counseled being respectful because I don't want the thread to be closed and would like to read more of the interesting facts about divorces and first-hand stories.
I am quite experienced in getting to know people with opinions that are different from mine. My best friend literally thinks "all women are stupid." He "hates them because they all think with their emotions." "Almost all of the country's problems stem from letting them vote." He has a PhD and thinks women's beauty is based solely on the size of their breasts. He mentioned that since his wife had become morbidly obese he almost lost interest in her "as a person" except for "because her t*ts got bigger so it was great."
I swear that is true. He has had some very bad luck with women over the four decades that I have known him. In my opinion it's because of his choices and emotional, hate-based thinking. He has three daughters and no sons.
We had a really good time in college where we met. I was already married when we were going to school and being young and immature. He was interested in girls and finding someone and I was firmly and completely married so we had different interests even then. But I learned to tune out the sexist and hate-filled comments starting back then.
One more example: One NYE night at our house, some twenty years later, we were drinking some champagne, well he and my wife were, I don't drink for medical and lack-of-interest reasons, and we were joking around in a sexist sort of humor way (None of it was directed at my wife.) and my wife, who has a fantastic sense of humor, laughed at a particularly raunchy joke and he stated "Geez, Mike, your wife is such a slut. [Pause] You are so lucky!" We all took it as a nice compliment as we had stated on a previous occasion that he and I liked 'sluts' because they had the same interests as us! (For the record: I have had only one each of the following: GFs and Wifes.) I am not a man-o-the-world. I have had many friends who have regaled me with vivid descriptions of their many experiences. My wife and I have been talking occasionally about his slut comment for many years and have come to the conclusion that he was extremely envious of us and me especially because I had found a 'good' woman. ie, one that who was nice and smart and who didn't hate the opposite sex. One of my wife's many great attributes is that she is kind of a regular-guy type of person due to her parents raising her in a equality-between-the-sexes household. So, the point of this story is that, when not having a hate-influenced thought, he realizes that there are women who are whole people who do not hate males. I think it was an eye-opener for him.
Lets hear some more stories and facts!
Mike D.